How to Draw Rowen Hashiba (from Ronin Warriors)

In this tutorial, I will show you how to draw Rowen Hashiba from "Ronin Warriors." I made this before watching the show, and the only pictures I had to use were from the OAVs, so he doesn't look exactly like he does in the TV series. ^_^ Begin by drawing a large circle for the head, then draw in the lower half of the face. The lower half of the face should be about half as long as the circle. Draw the guidelines for the eyes, nose and mouth. Generally, this character has larger, round eyes, but in this particular pose, his eyes are narrowed, so the guidelines should be drawn close together. Don't forget to draw the vertical guideline from the top of the head to the chin to help you line up the features later on.

Next, draw the outlines of the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears using the guidelines you drew in the last step. The eyes should be about one eye length apart. Hmm, I'm realizing now that the ears are rather off; I accidently drew them like that because the hair covers up part of the left ear later on. ^.^ Make the nose long and narrow, and try to draw the mouth so that it looks like he has lips instead of just drawing a straight line.

Next, erase the guidelines and draw the hair. Again, make sure some of his hair falls down between his eyes. Draw his irises, which are big enough that they almost fill up his entire eye. Also draw his eyebrows and add shading on his nose and beneath his mouth.

Now, erase your guidelines and add the final details, such as the light glares on his eyes, the shading under his mouth and chin, and the extra detail to his clothes. Clean up your sketch and move on to the final step.

Color or shade your picture as you see fit. This is one of those annoying characters whose hair seems to change color from picture to picture, which makes coloring him a pain. Sometimes his hair is teal, sometimes its blue, sometimes its almost green. In cases like this, just pick which color you think would work best. I chose a blue-ish teal, but there is quite a bit of leeway.

Next, we'll try drawing Rowen from a 3/4 view. Begin with a large circle for the top part of the head (don't worry if it isn't an exact circle; most of it is going to be covered up with hair, anyway, so it won't make too big of a difference if the circle isn't perfect). ^_^ Draw the lower half of the face and all the guidelines as shown. Notice that the guidelines for his eyes are further apart than in the front view; his eyes aren't narrowed in this pose.

Once all the guidelines have been placed, draw the outlines of the eyes, nose, mouth, neck and ear. The eyes, as mentioned before, are opened wider than in the previous tutorial, so make sure you don't make them look too squinty.

Next, erase the guidelines and draw the hair. Again, make sure some of his hair falls down between his eyes. Draw his irises, which are big enough that they almost fill up his entire eye. Also draw his eyebrows and add shading on his nose and beneath his mouth.

Add the final details, such as the pupil and light glares on his eyes, and his shirt. Try to add some folds on his clothes rather than drawing them without contour. Erase all unnecessary lines and clean up your sketch.

Color or shade your picture however you like. His hair is a darker blue in this picture than in the frontal view, because, as I said, his hair seems to change color from picture to picture, and the picture I was working with had darker hair... -_^

I felt I ought to cover how to draw Rowen's armor, instead of just his face. ^_^ Thanks, Emi, for letting me borrow your art book so I could use this cool picture! :) I had such a hard time finding a full body pose... ^.^ Anyway, start off by drawing the basic shape of the body. This is sort of similar to my DBZ body tutorial, in that you will use circles and ovals and cylinders to define the shapes. To help with the proportions, I've divided up the picture into two halves of equal width (so you can make sure the legs aren't too long or too short or whatever). His left arm is pulled back and up slightly, so make it thinner and shorter. Once you have the basic shape of the body, start adding in the basic shape of his armor. Don't worry about the details at this point, just worry about getting the shape. Notice that his left shoulderpad is smaller and flatter than the right; don't make them identical.

Now comes the tricky part, adding all the detail. ^_^ Its not really as difficult as it may look, though; the hardest part was getting the proportions correct. Hmm... I don't really know what to tell you. I realize that its probably hard to see all the detail with a picture this small, but I didn't want to make it too large, because then it would take a while to download. Just do your best. Next, add color to your picture or shade it, whichever you prefer.